Absolute Zero
by deep.in.darkness
Summary: Four people. Two different worlds. A cold storm is stirring, and its sharp talons are ready to sink into both worlds, from somewhere in between. And slowly, the temperature is sinking to Absolute Zero...
1. Prologue

The timing had to be perfect, that he was sure of.

The cold was sneaky, seeping slowly into his flesh, but what did it matter? After all, cold was just absence of heat – and to him, absences of anything was good.

_The absence of all this would be good too_, he grumbled inside his head, but quickly realizing that it was a bad idea, he settled for intertwining his fingers, bunching his hands up into one huge fist. He put it under his chin, crossing his legs. _Dominance, _his position said, and that was exactly what he was aiming for.

Now only the final task remained. He couldn't wait – his feet were tingling, his tightly woven fingers buzzing in excitement – because what was more pleasing than to see a beautifully laid plan being played out by your pawns?

_Not your pawns, _he had to tell himself, _his, _but all the same, it was a delight to see people dance about, doing all kinds of stupid, silly things, unaware of the fact that you were the one controlling, predicting their every move. He had carefully planned and tested every inch of his plan, and the chances of his success were fairly high.

Of course, the hardest part was making _her _do what he wanted, but with all the help his master had given him, he had no doubt that this would work out exactly how he wanted it to.

It was as if she had heard her name whilst drifting along in that mind of hers, of which her possession only extended to slight control. She could think as well as the rest, but her powers were his now.

She struggled, as he predicted she would, so he squeezed his fingers together until his fists were a bright, discolored red, and it seemed to work well enough; now she could only glare at him, bright eyes blazing with fury, or maybe it was anger. They were pretty much the same anyways.

Now that she was conscious, the second last part of his assignment had to be completed – he finally released his fingers from the prison he had made them create and force themselves in, stretching them outwards, splayed towards the figure in the billowing white dress.

And so he seeped into her mind, like the cold had tried to seep into his body, and concentrated. Though they were both of the same level, it could be argued that she was, perhaps, still a bit stronger than him. That was what they would've said an eon ago, though, and he grinned for the first time when he felt her brain carrying out the orders he had placed.

Reassured, he shoved his fingers back into fists, uncrossing and crossing his legs, settling more comfortably into the seat. With a particularly strong gust of air coming out between his lips, her cries were finally silenced, her head dropping against her chest with a quiet thump.

Standing up, he stared out the window, first looking at the beastly machine he had installed all around his little "castle", clutching onto it like a parasite, then at the distant landscape, where flurries of snow had started to fall from the sky.

It was time.


	2. Chapter 1 (Location: Hogwarts)

Draco wasn't very sure where she was.

He had searched the Great Hall, almost every single one of the classrooms, and even Fluffy's previous residence. They had all been empty, save for a few students who had stared at him curiously, wondering why the hell the Head Boy was suddenly sticking his head into rooms for no apparent reason.

And he still hadn't found her.

Draco would've gone to the Dark Forest to check, but he couldn't possibly risk his Head Boy status. Definitely not for Hermione Granger.

The only option left was for him to trudge around the hallways by himself, checking that there were no students out of bed at this time. Honestly, it was bloody stupid of the school – why make the Head Boy and Girl stay up so late, walking around at midnight when the rest of the students were so worn out by the homework load they couldn't be bothered to get up and creep about?

Draco shook his head in frustration as he stifled a yawn with the back of his hand. Waiting until the stairs shifted so he could walk from the sixth floor to the seventh floor, he frowned when he suddenly felt a particularly strong gust of wind whoosh by.

_The window must be open_, Draco concluded, and saw that his suspicions were correct, as the large window on the other side of the corridor was wide open, a pile of white fluff lying just below it, scattered about messily.

Bending down in front of the window, he reached a finger out to dab it, his finger immediately retracting when he realized that it was cold. Snow? Draco frowned again.

This was highly unlikely – the snow only began to fall at Hogwarts around late autumn, but now it was barely grazing the middle of autumn, and there was _snow. _Very unusual indeed.

Thinking back to this morning, Pansy had been complaining about the recent drop in temperatures, and even Blaise said he had felt a slight chill when he was walking through the hallways. Draco had put it down to their imagination, but the snow had definitely proved him wrong.

However, it hadn't been snowing this morning, or this afternoon either, so for there to be such a big pile of snow now meant that it was snowing quite heavily. _It gets stranger and stranger, _Draco sighed, yawning. A mere second later, he decided he was too tired to be dealing with such a thing, standing back up and stretching a bit. The cracking of his bones was enough to assure him that the safety of the rest of the students could wait, and he could not wait until one am to finally go to bed.

With his duties finally off his back and the space in his brain to think about anything besides studying and even more duties (Head Boy looked nice on his report card, that was all), the first thing he chose to do was to admonish himself for even caring about Hermione disappearing.

Okay, so maybe they were referring to each other by their first names. Big deal. And maybe that was because they had gotten closer over the past few months of their final year at Hogwarts. And that could've been because there was no one else for either of them to rely on, other than each other.

Those had been different cases. Being a former Death Eater and the child _of _former Death Eaters, Draco had, of course, been shunned by most of the student population upon returning to Hogwarts. Of course, the teachers, and some of the students (the ones who hadn't ran away after the whole business about the war), hadn't done particularly anything to him, but as a reclusive person, Draco had been taught since he was young not to trust anyone easily.

Let alone a Mudblood, of course. One like Hermione Granger. But after the war, the thing with all the Purebloods, Mudbloods and the like had died away, leaving a wizard community where everyone was perfectly happy about being either. Except for Draco, that was.

Being taught his whole life to despise anyone who wasn't, well, a Pureblood, it was harder to change. Occasionally, he would find himself treating the Pureblood first-years much nicer during their detentions, but he'd quickly realize what he was doing and become harsh to everyone. In fact, he was harsh to almost everyone, except for himself, and sadly to say, Hermione Granger.

When he said Granger's case was completely different from his, he was being completely honest. Draco had purposely shut everyone out by himself, whereas Granger's friends, Harry and Weasley (Hermione had forced him and Potter to be on first name basis, but he'd never call the Weasley by his first name even if it meant death by Hermione's books), had left her in Hogwarts all by herself.

Harry, whose first name his tongue was still not accustomed to, had been offered a position as Auror by the Ministry (the new Ministry, with a completely new staffing, of course). Of course, he, as anyone would've, jumped at the opportunity, and he had left Hogwarts just like that. And with him, he had taken Hermione's only close female friend Ginny with him – she was to continue her studies in America, where Harry had to stay for a mission. 'Mission' was too fancy a name, and too little a reason to leave your friend all by herself in Hogwarts, in Draco's opinion.

And of course, Weasley, being the little weasel his name implied, had successfully "weaseled" into not having to attend his last school year at Hogwarts. His first cousin had, for some particular reason, left him a big inheritance when he died of cancer, and with all that money, the thing Weasley chose to do was to leave school and pursue a life in the muggle world. His myopia would get him some day, Draco was sure, and poor Mrs. Weasley was sure to feel it too.

_Weasley was stupid, Weasley was dumb, Weasley would never notice danger until it bit him on his thumb – _Draco finally stopped when he realized that making poems about how much he hated the red-haired rascal wouldn't help him sleep at all. Muffling incoherent curses into his pillow, he buried his head further into its fluffiness (Hogwarts did provide good pillows, at least) and lay still, determined to fall asleep.

When he woke up the next morning, Draco realized that he must have fallen asleep somewhere between three am and four am, because he felt like his brain had become lead, and he could almost feel the consistent drumming of exhaustion on his head. He rubbed his eyes, ignoring the fact that rubbing his eyes would probably make them red and as a consequence making him look much more sleepy.

Luckily, being Head Boy meant he had his own room, which meant he didn't have to glare at his dorm mates for whispering about why he looked that bedraggled. He opened his trunk with a lazy flick of his wand, whispering _"Accio robes" _in his scratchy morning voice before stumbling towards the toilet, his feet like those of a drunken man's.

He dressed with agility of a toddler, but managed to cast enough spells to make him look – well, not look as if he'd only had two hours of sleep. After the war had completely destroyed the reputation of the Malfoys, he had seen to it that he himself at least tried to build it up. His father wasn't there to tarnish it anymore, and for some reason he was quite grateful for the sudden development of an aneurism that had taken his father's life. His mother was isolated from society now, hardly stepping a foot outside the house. The money that they had saved up from his father's Ministry job was all they had.

Draco looked at his reflection in the mirror again. With the help of spells his hair was now perfectly combed back, his skin as pale and unblemished as usual, and his eyes sharp. Good.

Standing back up, he wiped the invisible dust from the front of his robes, smoothing out the wrinkles. Making his way to the Great Hall, Draco found his mind wandering again to Hermione, where she was and how she was.

It simply wasn't feasible that she'd run off in the middle of the school year. Hermione Granger was a bookworm, a genuinely good student, and he was sure genuinely good students wouldn't just ruin their good reputation and run off in the middle of the school year. He shook his head firmly. She just wasn't that type of person, he knew.

The windows of the Great Hall were covered in frost, icicles dangling from corners. For a moment, Draco looked around in surprise, his mind vaguely registering the expressions of the people around him, ones that highly mirrored his.

If the weather yesterday had been slightly different, the weather now was altogether too strange to be true. Just a week ago the sun had still been hanging in the sky, albeit shining with a very dim light,

I shook my head in disbelief, heading over to the Slytherin table. I slid into the side of the long bench, ears listening for any kind of answers to what was happening. However, there was nothing in particular that could tell me much more about the strange weather other than the usual gossip.

I picked moodily at the plate in front of me, having only taken a little bit of toast for breakfast. I propped up my elbow on the table, putting my head on my palm, staring away at nothing. The Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff tables were much noisier – only the sounds of quiet gossiping could be heard amongst the Slytherins. I suppose we weren't that boisterous, having a snake as our house animal.

The little marble owl screeched "Announcements!" when the hands of the big clock turned to ten – both of them. It flapped its wings in a flurry of feathers, before Headmistress McGonagall stepped forward, and a tap of her wand on its head silenced it. Her steely grey eyes surveyed the Great Hall as she asked, "Are there any announcements?"

No one spoke under her hard glare, and she nodded.

"Right. To class, students." With that, they were dismissed, and there was a flurry of robes as all the students tried to stand up almost simultaneously.

* * *

><p>Annabeth woke up on the stairs.<p>

Well, not 'the' stairs. To put 'the' in front of something, you have to know where or what it is, and Annabeth had absolutely no idea where she was, let alone what it was.

The first thought that popped into her head was that she was definitely not in the Athena cabin. The familiar ceilings she woke up to everyday where gone, replaced by high ceilings, beautifully detailed. She laid there for a moment, almost malingering the time when she would have to stand up and realize something terrible had happened to her, her drowsiness like morphine.

The silence made Annabeth keenly aware of the noises around her, and immediately, her eyes darted towards a pair of decorated doors somewhere below, from which she could hear the buzz of murmuring voices.

Deciding that since she had no idea where she was, possibly getting harmed by whoever lay beyond that door was no matter to her, Annabeth pushed herself up to a sitting position, stretching. Satisfied with the cracks she heard, she rubbed her cold thighs, standing up slowly.

Her legs felt like they hadn't been walked in for a long time (sleeping for too long usually did that to Annabeth), so she leaned on the railing as she hobbled down the stairs as efficiently as she could in her state. Fortunately, all feeling soon returned to her legs, and she took the stairs down two by two. However, to her surprise, the stairs moved, and what was previously connected to the ground floor was suddenly connected directly to the fifth floor.

Annabeth's hand automatically reached for her knife, which was sheathed at her belt, as she usually did when she felt a bad situation ahead. Tiptoeing forward as quietly as she possibly could, the cold air making her teeth chatter (her orange t-shirt and jeans were the only clothes she wore), she placed one palm flat against the grand door.

Summoning all the courage she could in her half-awake, weak state, Annabeth pushed open the doors.


	3. Chapter 2 (Location: Hogwarts)

After a lifetime full of fighting, she had half-expected to see another not-so-mythical monster standing there behind the door.

However, Annabeth supposed, the _human _voices should have told her that that wasn't the case (not her fault, some creatures spoke English). But she definitely wasn't expecting a sea full of surprised faces staring at her, and she was sure her own expression mirrored theirs.

There were rows upon rows of people dressed in robes that looked like Halloween costumes, in what appeared to be a huge hall, but that wasn't the most shocking part. There were candles floating gentle in midair, owls (_owls!) _flying around, their eyes looking almost human, and faint outlines of what appeared to be people floating around.

It was like a dream – a nightmare, to be exact.

Annabeth rubbed her eyes. A nightmare. Yes. That was exactly what this was. Just a nightmare. And if she opened her eyes again…

She saw the same thing. No, this couldn't be. Common sense said that normal people didn't wear droopy black robes. Common sense said that candles shouldn't be floating around in midair (it wasn't safe, anyway). Common sense also said that there shouldn't be these half-invisible ghosts gliding around the hall. Blinking several times, Annabeth found herself looking at the same sight.

She also found a stern, regal-looking lady walking down the middle of the aisle, pince-nez perched on top of her nose. Without her stick (was that supposed to be a wand?) and her crooked hat (witch cosplay, Annabeth decided), she would have looked exactly like those posh British ladies in those old films.

She stopped in front of Annabeth, her slanted eyes judging every corner of her soul. Then, she turned around, standing tall and proud.

"Come." She commanded Annabeth, and her crisp British accent made her feel very subdued and messy in her scrumpled orange t-shirt and jeans. She trailed after the lady with slow, hesitant steps, like a little child being punished.

The walk was quite long, and the limited space between the tables and benches meant that Annabeth was constantly pressed against other bodies in an attempt to get through. The lady seemed to be meeting no obstacles, however, as she glided smoothly towards the podium at the front.

They both walked past the bench of teachers, and the woman leaned closer to a short, goblin-like man to whisper to him hastily.

"Make the students stay for now."

"What about the lessons?" The little man hissed back in a curious, lilting voice.

"Not now, Flitwick."

"Alright, Headmistress."

The lady and Annabeth turned away once again, the latter with the newfound information that this lady was the Headmistress of some school. What type of school it was, she wasn't exactly sure about, but she did know that it wasn't normal. Then, again, she considered as the lady led her to a secluded corner behind a pillar, Camp Half-Blood wasn't exactly normal either. Annabeth couldn't really judge.

"Come." The woman repeated again, long, wrinkly fingers making a come-hither gesture. The blonde adolescent followed after, her usually calm walking pace making her shiver at the knees. Annabeth's legs didn't seem to be eager to move at their normally brisk pace, so she found the Headmistress polishing her wand when the darkness finally blanketed her.

"How did you get here?" The first question had Annabeth thinking. Personally, she didn't know where she was – obviously she hadn't chosen to appear here herself – and so she had thought it likely that someone from _this _world had transported her here. It didn't seem like anyone here knew, though, so she answered honestly.

"I don't know. All I know is that my name is Annabeth and I'm definitely not supposed to be here." Her answer was succinct, but the way the Headmistress' eyebrows furrowed showed her that her message had definitely gotten across. The woman took a deep breath, as if thinking about what she should do next.

"You have absolutely no idea where you are." She said it as a statement, and Annabeth nodded in agreement. Another sigh ensued.

"Right." The Headmistress handed Annabeth the stick she had been polishing, and now its surface was so shiny she could see her reflection. Hesitantly, she accepted it, fingers gripping onto it loosely, a somewhat foreboding feeling boiling in the pits of her stomach.

"Wingardium Leviosa," The lady said, every syllable pronounced carefully, like a sort of strange chant. Before she could ask about it, however, the lady spoke.

"It's a spell." She gestured to what Annabeth supposed was a wand. Then, she managed to find a pebble somewhere between the folds of her robes, and held it in the palm of her hand.

"Say it, then wave your wand." Annabeth frowned.

"But what's the use of this?" She asked, still holding the wand gingerly.

"If you are one of us, I will know." The Headmistress said, gesturing once again, this time more impatiently, towards the wand. "Now please wave it and repeat what I said previously."

Now Annabeth felt like this was some huge prank, made just to see the baffled, confused look on her face (her biggest fear was not knowing something she _needed _to know). But she wasn't the type to back off, so she swung the wand (as stupid and childish as it made her feel), chanting the words under her breath, her grey eyes darting around, looking for something to happen, this "indication" that the Headmistress had mentioned.

And there, right in front of her very eyes, was the pebble, which had previously been resting on the lady's hand, floating gently in midair. It was just a few centimeters from the ground, but the law of physics said that this simply wasn't possible (she didn't know of demigods with telekinesis, either).

However, the Headmistress seemed to be satisfied with what she saw, if the tiny quirk of her lips and the firm nod she gave herself were any indication.

"W-what?" Annabeth couldn't help but stutter – this was such a strange sight, and yet the lady wasn't saying anything about it at all. Seeing her confused expression, the Headmistress turned back towards her.

"I suppose I should explain to you." She said it in the way that adults did when they were about to give a long, long explanation, so she perked up her ears to listen carefully. Though Annabeth couldn't read very well because of her dyslexia, she made up for it with her concentration, and her tendency to listen to every single word someone had to say and memorize the information almost verbatim.

"You're in the wizarding world. I don't know how you got here either," the Headmistress answered Annabeth's silent question, "but all I know is that you can't get out."

_Can't get out? _The blonde's eyes widened at this new piece of information, pursing her lips together. So not only was she stuck in this wizarding world, there was no way to get out.

"It's not that you can't get out if you really needed to," the Headmistress said before Annabeth could think any further about how many books she's have to read in the library before she could find a solution (and that was assuming this place actually had a library), "but the Ministry probably wouldn't allow you to go to the muggle world, unless you had a very important and valid reason."

"Ministry? Muggles?" Unconsciously, Annabeth voiced her questions out loud, "Why wouldn't I be able to get out unless I had a valid reason?"

"The Ministry is like the government the muggle world has, and muggles are non-magic people." the Headmistress paused for a while, her lips a tight line as if she was thinking of something bad, "You wouldn't be able to get out unless you had a valid reason because the recent Wizarding War has been deemed by the Ministry as too dangerous for both muggles and wizards, so to protect the defenseless muggles, a magical gate has been built between the wizarding world and the muggle world, so no magic will be able to affect them."

Annabeth was exhausted, her brain ready to shut down despite having slept for quite a while already, but she quickly scooped the information inside her head, willing herself to remember it. This could be vital for her plans to escape.

"Alright," Annabeth conceded, "but what will happen to me now?"

A thoughtful expression appeared on the Headmistress' face as she considered the possibilities. Then, she said, "Since you're not a muggle, I suppose we could accept you into our school for the time being. Until you find a valid reason that the Ministry will accept. Then you can leave. You're not _from _this world, are you?"

"No, I'm not." Annabeth replied, relieved that she'd at least have a place to stay, though she was in a completely unfamiliar environment.

"Let me just go fetch the Sorting Hat and ask try to organize for someone to take you around Hogwarts and maybe buy some things from Diagon Alley."

"Wait here." the Headmistress said to Annabeth before disappearing into the light. The latter took the moment to consider her situation.

She was somewhere she didn't know.

_Bad._

She was in a magical world.

_Bad. Or good, if she could learn magic. It could be helpful against mythical creatures._

She might never be able to get out.

_Okay, definitely bad._

The night she had crept into the Poseidon cabin to sneak into Percy's bed seemed like centuries ago. Why had she crept there last night again, she wondered, but quickly remembered. The weather had been getting colder lately, so she had gone to Percy, and now, seeing the goosebumps on her skin, Annabeth knew she was cold, but her anxiousness seemed to have numbed that away.

The Headmistress had returned sometime while she was in her thoughts, this time with another Professor, she supposed. They were both discussing something very avidly, quick muttering and whispering in hushed, quiet voices. The woman was holding a wrinkly version of what traditional witch hats were supposed to look like, and the male, who she assumed was a professor, was...just abnormally short, in Annabeth's opinion.

"Are you sure about this, Professor McGonagall? She could be a muggle, for all we know. The magic she did could've been an illusion cast by another wizard." The short, gnome-ish man asked, his eyes narrowing in suspicion.

The Headmistress, who appeared to be a professor as well, seemed to consider her colleague's warning for a while, before shaking her head in disagreement.

"No, it's highly unlikely that a wizard would be able to control someone outside speaking distance. And I can't see anyone," though she said this, the professor looked around, examining the darkness just to check, "and she is able to do magic, so I thought this was the best compromise. She might be from the muggle world, but I'm unsure...she has a bronze dagger - most muggles don't carry things like those around. I'd like you to help her decide her lesson schedule, if you could, Professor Flitwick."

Professor Flitwick nodded in agreement, accepting both the other professor's argument and her request. At that point, Annabeth decided that she'd gathered enough information, catching the professors' attention by coughing quietly. Two heads immediately snapped around to look at her.

"Um, so what do I do now?" She asked, getting to the point. The headmistress held up the wrinkly wizard's hat, with a quick reply "the Sorting Hat", which didn't answer Annabeth's question at all.

Nevertheless, she followed Professor McGonagall as the lady beckoned her to follow her back out into the main part of the Great Hall. Her scruffy sneakers were a huge contrast to the polished shoes the students in this school seemed to have, Annabeth observed as she sat on the stool Professor McGonagall had pointed out to her, her eyes glued to the floor, doing as her brain's predilection told her to.

There was the clickety clack of boots before the headmistress' voice boomed throughout the Great Hall.

"Students. We have a new student, Annabeth," she nodded in the blonde's direction, "who will be joining us today. The Sorting Hat will determine which house she will be in." Annabeth watched as the headmistress showed the students the wrinkly wizard hat; seeing the recognition appear in their eyes, she felt even more alone than before.

The clickety clack sounds returned until Annabeth could feel a presence behind her, and instinctively closed her eyes. Though she wasn't really sure what Professor McGonagall was going to do, she thought the woman seemed trustable, at least.

She closed her eyes as the Sorting Hat settled on her hat.

_You're not meant to be here, are you?_

_**author's note;**_

Hey guys. Thanks for all the followers, you guys are amazing. (Except for - you're supposed to be beta-reading this. -_-) I'm sure you guys already know which house Annabeth is going to be in, but just for fun, which house do you think she's going to be in? (If you say Hufflepuff, I swear - )


	4. Chapter 3 (Location: Camp Half-Blood)

_Achoo!_

The tickly sensation in his nose was what woke Percy up. It was too bad - he had been enjoying his sleep under his mountain of duvets, and it was better than the dream world. Here, he didn't really have anyone, not at the moment.

There were still impressions left on the bed where Annabeth had last slept, the night before she had disappeared. He sighed, running a hand through his hair in frustration. Pulling himself up into a sitting position, he took the moment to relax and enjoy the silence -

"_Oh my god someone help!"_

He recognised the voice as Katie Gardner, one of the demigods in the Demeter cabin. It was - he checked his bedside clock - eight o'clock. There was no reason for anything important to be happening right now, when most people weren't even awake.

Nevertheless he got out of bed, eyes blinking to get rid of the curtain of sleep that still hung over them. Slipping his sneakers on, Percy immediately headed out. He could see a crowd around the Athena cabin, a bunch of people just standing there and staring at the sky, upon first glance.

Upon closer inspection, the people weren't looking at the sky (pity, the clouds were quite pretty today), but at the roof of the Athena cabin. Percy followed their gazes to a splotch of black sprawled out in the middle. His eyebrows furrowed. What was that?

There were several people who seemed to be trying to do something - some were attempting to climb the walls of the Athena cabin (with a lot of luck that would work), while the others were just standing there flailing their arms uselessly.

Percy swore things like this happened just to prove how utterly stupid their camp was, despite most of them being demigods with considerably good powers. His feet felt like iron as he dragged himself to the crowd. Seeing Katie Gardner (and recognising her scream), he asked, "What's happening?"

The brunette turned around, eyes wide.

"Omigod Percy! We need help! She," Katie pointed to the black splodge who appeared to be a teen girl dressed in some kind of black drab, "is stuck on the roof and we can't get her off! Help, please!"

Percy frowned.

_If Annabeth was here she could've used the flying shoes._

_Oh wait, she's not here, and she doesn't have them anymore_.

He frowned even more.

"Isn't there a ladder in the tools shed?" He asked. The last he remembered, there was a ladder when he last went to check something - he couldn't quite remember what it was anymore, but he was certain about the ladder.

"There is?" Several campers turned their heads towards him. Percy sighed.

"I'll go get it, wait."

He trudged to the tools shed, and sure enough, there the ladder was, casually lying against the back wall. Percy decided that though the ancient demigods seemed to be quite stupid at times, most of the new demigods could definitely give them a run for their money.

_Yeah, most of them, _Percy reminded himself that not all demigods were incredibly unintelligent - it was just that most of them had gone off on a sort of experience-building trip. Something about building their leadership skills, but he suspected Dionysus just wanted less people to deal with on the camp. Brainless people were definitely much easier to manipulate if necessary.

Grabbing the ladder with one hand (all that fighting practice was worth it), Percy made his way back to Athena's cabin, propping it against the wall.

"Okay. Someone do the rest."

Everyone merely stared at Percy, dumbfounded, as if they had expected him to be the wonderful prince in shining armour he totally didn't look like in his current, pyjama-clad state, to climb up the ladder and help...whoever it was up there.

However, seeing that no one was making a move to do anything (except for a few people giggling and gossiping at the back - Aphrodite demigods), Percy sighed. It looked like he was going to have to do something about it himself.

With all the grace and agility of a person who had been on several quests on behalf of Camp Half-Blood, to practically save the world, he climbed up the ladder, almost falling at a few points. If Annabeth was here, he imagined, she'd chastise him on his climbing skills then proceed to give him a lecture on how exactly he could climb better. Usually complete with a kiss if he was lucky.

There were was nothing productive to keep remembering the fact that Annabeth wasn't here, so Percy continued climbing until he reached the roof of the Athena cabin. Tentatively, he stepped onto the blue tiles, wondering why today, of all days, all the kids in the Athena cabin were gone.

_Probably gone with the smarter people to develop their skills because they're smart, _Percy thought. If someone from the Athena cabin was here, they'd probably have it figured out in a matter of seconds. The other cabins, it seemed, were too dumb to really do anything.

Apparently, the demigods in Athena's cabin wanted to be prepared for everything, because the tiles on the roof were too strong to be true - Percy's weight (he wasn't particularly heavy or anything, but still) didn't seem to have any effect on the roof whatsoever. It was sort of like standing on a second ground, except that second ground felt stronger than the actual ground itself.

The mystery person, who, upon Percy's inspection, was a brunette, and seemed to be perfectly fine now that there was a way down. She was already standing on her two feet, walking over to the ladder. However, she approached Percy first.

"Do you happen to know where I am?" She had a very strong British accent, Percy observed, so she probably wasn't a demigod. _But how did she get here?_, he wondered.

"That doesn't matter for now. Who are you?"

The brunette frowns.

"I'm Hermione. Hermione Granger. And who are you?"

"Percy Jackson." he frowned. No, he didn't need to know her name. What he really needed to know was, "What are you?"

"A human." Her eyebrows raised, as if challenging him to go against her knowledge. Percy ruffled a hand through his hair in frustration. Yes, he knew she was a human, but -

"I meant, do you have any type of…," he thought for a suitable word, "power?"

Hermione's eyes widened as if he had said something he wasn't supposed to know. Pretty typical response for a frightened demigod that had accidentally done something bad, and had hidden their powers in fear of doing something terrible again.

"I'm a wizard." Percy frowned, forehead wrinkling. _Wizard _wasn't a common word in his dictionary. Clearly, with the Greek Gods around, there was no way there was magic - just demigod powers. This girl had to be joking.

"I didn't mean what you are in your imagination. I'm asking you what you are, and what powers you have. That's a serious question."

"And I'm giving you a serious answer." Hermione replied, that challenging expression still on her face. Percy shook his head.

"No way. There are no such things as wizards, okay?" the steely gaze she replied him with made him feel foreboding, as if were about to be proven wrong in the worse way. But, well, there was no way he could be proven wrong by something that wasn't even real, right?

The girl whipped a wand out from within the folds of her robe, flashing it, waving it in front of him, chanting clearly, "Aguamenti."

At first, Percy reeled back at the shocking sight of water spurting out from the end of the wand, before quickly using his own demigod powers to direct the water away from himself,. He turned it into a puddle, resting nicely on the ground beside them.

Now they were both staring at each other in surprise. Hermione took a deep breath, opening and closing her mouth a few times as if thinking of something to say but thinking better of it, before finally bursting out, "What was that?"

"I could ask you the same," Percy replied, "so you really are a wizard."

"I've been telling you that all this time," she answered snappily, as if the implications of waking up somewhere she didn't know were finally getting to her, "now tell me what that was."

She didn't know what Percy was. Clearly, this meant she had no knowledge whatsoever about demigods, so she wouldn't know about Camp Half-Blood, so therefore, she hadn't come here on her own will, but against.

"My demigod powers." Percy shrugged nonchalantly, and Hermione's eyes burned holes into his face.

"What demigod powers? What are demigods? And you still haven't told me where I am!" Her voice rose an octave, and he could sense fright in her tone.

"Demigod powers. You know, the powers demigods have. And demigods are the children of Greek Gods. As for where you are, this is the place where demigods are safe." Percy reconsidered his words.

"For the most part, at least," he added, "so how did you get here?"

"I don't know," she frowned, a hand supporting her chin in thought, "I just woke up an hour ago because someone was yelling, and realised I was on this," Hermione looked down at the crowd still standing anxiously outside Athena's cabin, "roof."

Percy frowned. The mystery had deepened. For a moment, he thought back to Hera, and how she'd switched him and Jason, but quickly dismissed the thought. Annabeth had, somehow, managed to get Hera to promise never to do it again. On second thought, you probably couldn't trust the gods' promises anyways.

It couldn't be, though.

"Do you know how to get back to wherever you were in the first place?" Hermione pursed her lips in thought.

"Well," she said, "judging by your accent, we're in America, right? I'm sure you can tell, but I'm from Britain. Not that far away, but still far." She appeared to think for a bit.

"Since you're a camp, would you happen to have enough funds to pay for an airplane ticket?"

Percy raised a brow. Their camp sold strawberries (very good strawberries, but in the end, they were only strawberries), and that didn't make for a particularly large amount of funds.

"I'm not sure." Dionysus probably wouldn't allow it anyways, he mused.

"What's happening?" A deep, sonorous voice resonated within the air.

Chiron came galloping from the distance, hoofs clacking loudly against the densely packed ground. His hazel eyes glinted as he assessed the situation, eyes flickering from the large crowd to the top of the roof, where he and Hermione were standing, conversing. He nodded in recognition at Percy, but upon realising that he did not know who Annabeth was, glanced towards him again, head tilted in an unspoken question.

"We should go down." Percy told Hermione, awkwardly gesturing to the ladder he was certain they could both see.

"Mhm." She nodded in reply, making her way over and going down. Percy followed quickly after, feet moving from rung to rung with familiar ease.

"New camper." Percy directed towards Chiron immediately when they got down. He could already see some of the other campers eyeing Hermione in interest when they realised that she wasn't _supposed _to be there.

"Hm," Chiron answered, "how did she get here, though? I'm certain I haven't sent any satyrs to guard her." He gestured towards Hermione.

"Which god's offspring is she?"

Percy shrugged at both of Chiron's questions.

"I don't know how she got here, and she's not a demigod, but she has powers." He spoke the last part quietly so the rest of the campers, though clearly eavesdropping, could not hear what he said. Chiron soaked in his words, brow furrowed in thought, before speaking to both Hermione and Percy.

"Come with me." He beckoned, already trotting away towards the Big House, presumably to go talk to them in his office.

Percy shrugged, following, and he saw Hermione behind the both of them in the corner of his eye. He didn't know whether or not a wizard (or witch's) appearance right now was lucky or ominous.

Oh, if he had known.

_**author's note:**_

…

I feel really awkward about the house I'm going to place Annabeth in now.

Cat In the Snow had a really great comment on why Annabeth should be in Slytherin, so I did consider that for a moment...but nah.

She's too nice.

(Personally, I'd be in Slytherin. What about you guys? Hint hint: say Slytherin. I'll give you cookies. Imaginary cookies, that is.)


End file.
